The Marauder's Map
by Miranda Shadowind
Summary: *Chapter 3 at last!* A night of mischief for First Years Fred and George turns into one of discovery, and adventure ensues. Initially based on a certain scenario alluded to in PoA and told from the twins' POVs, alternating between chapters.
1. Chapter 1

The Marauder's Map  
Miranda Shadowind   
  
(George's POV)   
  
It'd started out inncently enough... Alright, maybe not knowing Fred and me. Come to think of it, I don't think we've _ever_ been innocent. At least not since we were a year old.   
  
Anyway, one night we were hiding on either side of the Charms Corridor entrance, waiting for Slytherin Prefect Kevin Frary to finish making his rounds. He'd given us hell a few times in the past, and this was payback.   
  
Hearing footsteps, we peered around our respective corners. Bingo. There he was, prefect badge pinned above the Slytherin Symbol on his black robes.   
  
"_Ready Forge?_ We'd switched Christmas sweaters this morning to drive Percy and the teachers up the wall.   
  
"_You know I am, Gred._"   
  
We stepped out into the open and each tossed a dungbomb at Kevin. BOOM-SPLAT!!! He was instantly covered in dung, as were portions of the surrounding walls. More than enough reason for us to burst out laughing. But if I'd only glanced down the corridor a bit longer, I would've realized that Kevin wouldn't be our only victim that night...   
  
"MRRRROOOOOWWWW!!!!" Mrs. Norris, pet cat and deputy to Hogwarts' Squib of a janitor, Argus Filch.   
  
Her yowling brought us back to our senses in an instant. "What's SHE doing here?!"   
  
"Doesn't matter now..." I replied. "Let's get out of here before-"   
  
"WHAT HAVE YOU TWO HOOLIGANS DONE TO MY SWEET?!" Filch bellowed, suddenly appearing behind us. We gave him our best innocent looks and a hasty "explanation," but he was unconvinced. "My office. NOW!"   
  
Satisfied that we'd at least gotten our revenge on Kevin and harrassed Mrs. Norris in the process, we followed Filch to his office. Much to our further amusement, she tracked dung the whole way, making even more of a mess.   
  
Having gotten into plenty of trouble (heck, it's our middle names, second if you count that Mum middle-named us after each other) since the beginning of the year (our first), we knew the drill: Filch marched us in, we sat down at the desk, he got out the usual form. He picked up a quill, turned his back to us, and ranted as he scribbled.   
  
"Names: Frederick and George Weasley..." Knowing how this usually went, I mimicked Filch as he went along. "Crimes: Befouling the castle, roaming the castle late at night, harassing a prefect, and giving Mrs. Norris a dung bath..." Fred and I both sniggered at the latter. "Find this funny, do you?! Suggested _sentence_: Detention, Disembowlment..." He listed a whole load of things all three of us knew Dumbledore would never approve of.   
  
I was really getting into my mockery when Fred elbowed me in the ribs. '_What?_'  
  
'_Take a look over there.'_ He motioned toward a file cabinet marked _Confiscated and Highly Dangerous_. '_You thinking what I'm thinking?_'  
  
Fred's maniacal grin matched my own. '_As always. Got another dungbomb?_'  
  
_'You may do the honors, dear brother.'_ Fred produced a particularly large dungbomb from his robes and passed it to me.   
  
Aiming for his head, I lobbed the dungbomb at Filch. Fred and I barely managed to dive under the desk in time before it went off, giving our "favorite" caretaker and most of his office a healthy coating of Zonko's finest dragon dung.   
  
"AAAAAGGGGHH!!! Blast both of you!!" Filch roared, stumbling around blindly.   
  
We quickly scrambled out from under the desk, and Fred dashed to the file cabinet. Sadly, he only had a moment or two to rifle through it as Filch bungled near. So wordlessly, we high-tailed it out of there and dashed up to Gryffindor Tower.   
  
"Po... Polaris..." I panted upon reaching the Fat Lady.   
  
"And just what have you two been up to now?" she asked as the portrait swung forward to admit us. Laughing and panting, we climbed inside and flopped down on the nearest couch. Thankfully it was late, so we were alone.   
  
"So what'd you find?"   
  
"Don't know, I didn't have time to see exactly what was in there so I nicked whatever I grabbed first and got out of there..." Fred pulled out a lone blank, square piece of parchment that looked pretty old, and scowled. "What's an old piece of parchment doing in a drawer marked _Confiscated and Highly Dangerous_?" he pondered out loud, prodding it with his wand.   
  
In response to his question, words appeared on the parchment as if being written by an invisible hand: _  
  


What you hold is more than what it seems. As you were sneaky enough to recover this masterpiece, we deem you worthy of the words that reveal its secret: "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."  
-Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs

_  
  
Fred and I looked at the words, at each other, and nodded. I pointed my wand at the parchment as well. "_I solemnly swear that-_"   
  
"_-I am up to no good._"   
  
Immediately, thin ink lines spread out across the parchment from the point our wands had touched. They crisscrossed, joined together, and formed words and shapes. On the top were great, curly green words proclaiming: _  
  


Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs  
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers  
are proud to present  
THE MARAUDER'S MAP

_  
We just sat there in amazement, for we held in our hands a map showing every single detail of the castle and grounds! We recognized a few of the secret passageways on it, but there were several others we had yet to locate. I traced my finger down a couple of them. "Fred, look at this! This one, and those over there lead-"   
  
"-right into Hogsmeade! Pure genius!"   
  
"A dream come true, no more waiting until our third year!" I agreed.   
  
Even more remarkable were the tiny ink dots moving around the map, all of them labeled with a miniscule name. We pulled it closer to be sure of what we were seeing. Kevin was currently mucking up the Prefects' Bathroom; Filch was attempting to clean his office and fend off Peeves the Poltergeist at the same time; and sure enough, up in the Gryffindor Common Room were two dots labeled "Frederick Weasley" and "George Weasley."   
  
"This is the one time I'm glad Filch caught us, so to speak."   
  
"Think we'll still get detention once he finds the forms?"   
  
Fred shrugged casually. "We might, but it was well worth it, in more ways than one."   
  
"Definitely. But now that we know how to activate it, how do we whipe it blank so no one else knows?"   
  
Again, the map gave us an answer. My dot-self was poking his miniscule wand at something (presumably the map), and a barely visible word bubble appeared with the words "_Mischief Managed_" in it.   
  
Shrugging, I pointed my wand at the map. "_Mischief managed!_" At once, the map returned to its blank parchment state. I yawned and stretched. "Time for bed..."   
  
Fred nodded and pocketed the map. "We'll start putting this thing to good use in the morning."   
  
With that, we headed up to our dormitory, pulled off our robes, and flopped down into each other's beds. The bed-swapping bit was nothing new, sweaters aside; we'd been doing it for years to confuse Mum. "G'night Fred."   
  
"G'night George. Tomorrow, the adventure begins..." 


	2. Chapter 2

The Marauder's Map

Miranda Shadowind

Author's Note: By popular demand, here's Chapter 2! Sorry for the big delay!

Chapter 2

(Fred's POV)

"Fred wake up! C'mon you two, we'll be late for breakfast!"

It took me a minute or so to realize that someone was yelling my name. And yet the caller was at least one bed over! So I rolled over to my left, opened one eye, and sniggered. Lee was standing over my four-poster attempting to wake up George thinking he was me!

'_The git forgot we switched yesterday!'_ George rolled to face me, smirking with his eyes half-closed. We were used to people getting us mixed up, whether we'd planned it or not. 

'_So I noticed. Play along, see how long it takes him to figure it out._'

'_Should we tell him about the map?_'

'_Nah, he'll probably blab it out by mistake. Besides, we need to keep _some _trade secrets._'

'_Hell yeah.'_

"Come ON, Fred! Quit fooling around for once!" Lee was getting annoyed and shook George again.

"What, and… *yawn* ruin our reputation?!" George said indignantly.

"Such blasphemy!" I joined in, putting my hand over my heart in mock hurt as we both sat up in bed.

Lee laughed and shook his head, dreadlocks flying in every direction. "Point taken!" 

"Oh, don't say that-" I joked.

"-we already get enough taken off-" 

"-courtesy of Snape!"

"Slimey git's got no sense of humor…"

"You know what I mean!" With that, Lee headed downstairs to the Common Room. George and I high-fived, pulled our sweaters off, and traded them back over the gap. 

My vision suddenly went black, and a foul odor assaulted my nose. "You sweat too much, you know that?" I teased, pulling the offending sweater off my face.

"And I suppose you're just the _king_ of freshness aren't you?" was the reply, but he was grinning.

"Nope, just fellow king of pranks," I grinned back. 

We never could stay mad at each other. They say nobody knows you better than yourself, but I think we're an exception to the rule because he IS me, and I'm him. We're a part of each other; an inseparable pair, one genius made two. Fred and George. Gred and Forge.

"Got the map?" I fished it out of yesterday's robes and held it up before stuffing it into a fresh set as we got changed. 

Soon, we climbed out of the portrait hole and started to head downstairs when George pulled me off to the side. "Something wrong?"

"No I just remembered the map showing the entrance to a secret passage right around here somewhere…" he whispered back, studying the wall.

"Come to think of it, so do I. Might as well see where it leads." I pulled the map back out, made sure no one else was looking, and tapped it with my wand. "_I solemnly swear I am up to no good._" 

"Who needs to swear it? When are we _ever_ up to any good?"

"Never of course!" 

Sniggering softly, we pinpointed our location on the map, then searched for the passage in question. As it turned out, the entrance was hidden behind a tapestry at the far end of that very corridor, on the right-hand side. We shoved the tapestry aside but only found solid stone behind it.

"That's odd, it should be right here…" 

The torchlight was dim, so I muttered, "_Lumos!_" and held my wand closer to the masonry. Now the outline where the tapestry had been could be seen more clearly. Wait, that wasn't just where the dust ended… I put my back to the wall and gave it a good push. It swung back a little. "Aha! George this is it! Give me a hand!"

Together, we managed to get it so that half of the stone "door" was sticking out into the corridor and the other half was in the passageway. We stepped inside, and it swung back into place on its own. "Probably just needed a little elbow grease to get it working again after years of non-use, eh Fred?" 

"More than likely. Come on!" In the torchlight we could see a long, wide spiral staircase leading downward. Eager to see where it led, we raced down and came to a halt at a large wooden panel at the bottom.

George and I took another look at the map. My dot-self was pulling at something on the panel. I looked up and spotted something unusual sticking out of it. I tugged at the object, which felt like a book, and the panel slid away, revealing a familiar area of the castle. The staircase had led us to the second floor above the Great Hall. 

"Convenient little shortcut," George remarked, tapping the map. "_Mischief Managed!_" Both our stomachs grumbled their complaint, so we slipped out, hid the parchment, and joined the other students heading down for breakfast.

In the Great Hall, we sat down on either side of Lee. "Just what were you two up to last night anyway?" He asked. Across the table, Angelina, Alicia, and Katie leaned in to hear.

I grinned mischievously. "Getting our revenge on Frary-"

"-who was cavorting with Mrs. Norris-" The six of us got a good laugh out of that one.

"So of course Filch caught us-"

"-but we gave his office-"

"-a niiice coat of dung-"

"-before making our escape."

"You know-"

"-the usual."

The resulting laughter was cut short as a large shadow loomed over our heads. George, Lee, and I looked up, half expecting to see Snape, but met McGonagall's stern gaze instead. A pair of detention slips fell onto the table, one on either side of Lee.

"Mr. Filch has informed me of your little 'misadventure' last night, and 30 points have been taken from Gryffindor. You will report to the dungeons at 9:00 sharp. Is that clear?" McGonagall explained, as if daring us to protest. 

"Yes, Professor," we chorused. She left.

Some seats down, Percy glared at us over his horn-rimmed glasses. We glared back until he went cross-eyed due to said glasses suddenly being turned into a horned beetle… "AAAAAHHH!!! GETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFF!!!!"

He made a big scene of it, making even his fellow prefect wannabes chuckle. George blew on the tip of his wand and we high-fived again. "A fine work of Transfiguration if I do say so myself!" Snooty prat that he is, Percy's always been our favorite prank target, Filch aside.

"Ugh, detention in the dungeons. You know what that means of course…" I groaned.

"Fun Time with Snape." George agreed sarcastically.

Angelina made a face. "There's nothing we can do about it though. Plus knowing Snape he'll probably take more points off just for talking." At that, George and I looked at each other and grinned evilly.

"'Lina you're a genius!" I slapped a hand on her shoulder.

"What are you two plotting now?!"

I lowered my voice a bit. "It's simple, really-" 

"-we'll give Professor Greaseball-"

"-the old Silent Treatment!"

Lee and the girls stared at us in disbelief, probably figuring even _we_ couldn't pull it off given half the time we never shut up. But then, they didn't know we didn't need words to communicate. George and I had our best-kept secret, the one thing we swore to each other that we'd never tell anyone: the telepathic bond we've shared practically since birth. It was perfect for pranks that required stealth and/or us to split up. To say nothing of our current plan to drive Snape insane.

"Good luck, you need it," Katie said finally.

"You three are insane!" Alicia.

"You just noticed-" 

"-that just now?"

"Boys…" muttered Angelina, shaking her head. The bell rang some minutes later, so we headed for Charms.

******************

Shameless Plug- My other two twin fics:

*Switching Hour: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=795843

*Dead Twin Walking: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=553917


	3. Chapter 3

The Marauder's Map  
Miranda Shadowind 

A/N: Again, I apologize for the huge delay, but too much has been going on lately. I've got the basic sequence of events down, and hope to finish this before I finish "Switching Hour." Partially because I know this will be shorter in terms of chapter numbers, partially because chronologically it takes place before SH, "What if…?"-ing aside. 

Chapter 3 

(George's POV) 

"To think the whole thing started here…" Fred muttered as we headed down the Charms Corridor. Only I knew he was mostly referring to our discovery of the map. 

"We can tell," Angelina remarked, holding her nose. 

The smell of dung still lingered where we had teamed up on Frary. No doubt Squib Boy had been up the rest of the night just trying to remove the mess, let alone the stench. I almost felt sorry for the magic-less old bugger… Almost. Ah, who am I kidding, he deserved what he got! Besides, if not for his Squib-dom, knowing Filch he'd probably be ten times as worse, even if that is why he hates students in the first place. 

Inside, Flitwick was busy putting large feathers on the desks, which meant we'd be learning _Wingardium Leviosa_ as he'd hinted before. As we started to pass his desk, I noticed that he'd conveniently left his wand out in the open. 

'_Shall I?_' I jerked my thumb toward the wand, and Flitwick's turned back. 

'_Go for it!_' Fred snorted and nonchalantly headed for his desk. 

Biting my tongue, I quickly nudged the wand so that it rolled under a pile of extra feathers. This done, I sneakily replaced it with another wand and blended into the other Gryffindors filing in. 

'_All set!_' I sat down at my usual desk toward the back beside Fred, both of us heaving with silent laughter. 

'_Which one is it?_' 

'_Not sure, but given Flitwick it'll be a riot one way or the other._' 

Grinning evilly, we watched Flitwick take the wand and climb up onto his stack of books. "Good morning, Class. Today we will be learning a most uplifting spell, _Wingardium Leviosa._ You of course remember the little wrist movement we've been practicing, the Swish and Fli-" 

*SQUAWK!* 

"AAH!!!" 

*CRASH!* 

On those last three words, Flitwick had demonstrated, only to find that he was conducting class with a rubber chicken. The resulting noise had scared him out of his wits, and, consequently, made him topple off the books. Our fellow Gryffindors burst out laughing, and Fred and I joined in, low-fiving under the desks. 

Lee turned around and gave us a knowing look. "What was that?" 

Fred glanced around the room for a second, then whispered, "Let's just say-" 

"-Fake Wand Test Number One-" 

"-of Project Triple-W-" 

"-was a complete success!" 

Lee grinned and nodded; he knew exactly what "Project Triple-W" was. Fred and I've been working on our own line of joke products: "Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes." We haven't made much beyond the fake wands yet, as we're only First Years, but that'll change soon enough. Mum has no idea, of course. She'd probably skin us alive if she ever found out… 

Flitwick got to his feet and located his real wand as the laughter died down. "Yes, yes, very amusing." He examined the wand for a moment, then climbed back onto his stack. "Now, as I was saying…" 

One hour of flying and exploding feathers later, we headed for the Big Snoozefest - er, History of Magic. Seriously, old Professor Binns can put _anyone_ to sleep the way he rambles on. Maybe there's something in Bill's old Transfiguration book on how to turn a textbook into a pillow… 

[Later…] 

"*YAWN* Let's go George, class's over." Fred nudged me in the shoulder. 

"Mmm, yeah…" I pointed my wand at the quill in front of me, which had just finished scribbling down what I had said. "_Finite Incanto._" It fell flat on the parchment, which I quickly stowed away in my rucksack, silently thanking whoever invented the Dictation Charm. '_Reckon there's any secret passages down in the Dungeons?_' 

'_More than likely. Bet one of 'em leads to Filch's favorite torture chamber._' We both sniggered, earning odd looks from those around us as we headed downstairs. 

Fred started to reach into his robes, but immediately put his hand back down. I didn't have to ask why; the last thing we needed was for the whole school to find out about the map before we could fully utilize it. If the teachers saw that it had been recovered, undoubtedly they'd put it under lock and key somewhere, or worse, burn it. 

Lunchtime found us sitting by Charlie and Percy. Most of the Third Years at the Gryffindor Table, as well as the other three, were abuzz with excitement. "What's all the fuss about, Perce?" 

"Time for the 'Geek Awards' already?" 

Percy scowled. "There is no such thing!" 

"You're probably right, the Ravenclaws would win every year." 

Several loud fits of sneezing could be heard two tables away.

"Ravenclaw House is NOT full of geeks!" he exclaimed a bit too loudly, resulting in indignant stares all aimed at him. 

I looked at Fred, then back at Percy curiously. "And just how would you-" 

"-know something like that?" 

"That's… that's none of your business!" Percy was attempting to remain calm, but his pink face gave him away. 

"It's the next Hogsmeade weekend tomorrow," Charlie stated, bringing up the original topic. "The other Third Years probably want to get what they can before the school year's over." 

"Pathetic really. None of them care that it's the only non-Muggle village in all Great Britain, or of its grand history dating back to…" 

Of course, no one was listening. Fred and I learned how to tune him out the way we do Binns a long time ago. I swear, if Dumbledore ever decides to give Binns the boot, Percy would be the perfect replacement. At least in terms of a class to sleep through. 

Fred grinned at me from across the table. '_A Hogsmeade weekend! It's the perfect time to slip out and explore the village! There'll be too many other students for anyone to notice a couple of First Years running amuck!_' 

'_My sentiments exactly, but we're not exactly tall for our age. We still might stick out enough for someone to notice._' 

'_Yeah, but what can we do…?_' 

Surprisingly, the answer came in Double Potions with the Slytherins afterwards. We'd decided to do our passage hunt after detention, when the risk of getting caught would be lowest. While Snape wrote ingredients on the blackboard, Fred copied them down and I stole glances at the Dungeons section of the map so we'd have some idea of where to look later. 

"…Though I doubt some of you are ready," Snape glanced toward our side of the room, "your assignment is to make the Aging Potion. Its effects depend on how much is taken, as well as its strength. The instructions on the board are for a weaker, temporary version. Therefore, any one of you thinking of using the one you make to fool teachers will find it quite useless." 

I almost expected him to glare at Fred and me on that last comment, but he didn't. '_An Aging Potion, of course!_' 

'_Who would think we'd actually make something useful in Potions? We'll just make ours a_ tad _stronger than everyone else's._' I pocketed the map, fished out _Magical Drafts and Potions_, and searched for the original recipe. Thankfully, we wouldn't have to fully improvise, as there were notes on how to make it stronger or weaker according to need. "Here we go, just need to double this and throw in a dash of that…" 

I added to the notes accordingly, but not fast enough. Snape was headed our way, so we got to work, pretending to be working on the weaker potion. He stared down at the open book, which I shut at once. 

"Misters Weasley, I thought I made it quite clear at the start of class that you would not need your textbook for today's lesson. Are you that hard of hearing or are you simply eager to have points taken from your House? More of which should have been taken off for your harassment of a Slytherin Prefect last night, I might add." 

We simply shrugged and slowly followed the "corrected" recipe thus far, barely acknowledging his slimy presence. "Well?! Don't you have anything to say for yourselves?!" 

'_Not for us… HIM on the other hand…_' 

I nearly squashed the bits of chopped dragon liver I was holding as I held in a laugh. Yech… I tossed them into the cauldron and casually glanced up at Snape. "We were just _curious_ about the original-" 

"-nothing wrong with that, is there?" 

"Curiosity killed the Gryffindor. 5 points will be taken for your cheek." With that, he swooped away toward his bitches - I mean House charges. Kinda makes you wonder sometimes, the way he favors them and all… 

"_Curiosity killed the Gryffindor!_" I mimicked half under my breath, scrunching up my nose. "Pity we can't force feed him some of this. Think it'd be enough to turn his hair gray?" 

"Who can tell under all that grease?" Fred chuckled, and I joined in. 

"Good point." I flipped the textbook back open but hid it on my lap so it wouldn't be spotted again, and we continued. 

By the time we'd finished, class was nearly over and Snape was scrutinizing workstations. He was about to examine our cauldron when the bell rang, thankfully. "You will store your potions in the student cabinet, and I will examine them more thoroughly next class." He then stared at Fred and me. "As for you two troublemakers, I will see you in this room at 9:00 tonight and not a minute later!" 

"Right." 

'_See us, yes. Hearing is a different matter…_' Fred grinned and dipped a pair of empty phials into the cauldron along with a flask after Snape had left. 

'_Nyaha, I know!_' I took a phial, stoppered it, and stowed it in my rucksack as Fred did the same. '_This should be enough, we just need to be at least two years older._' I labeled the flask and put it in the cabinet on our way out. 

'_Then it's just a matter of which passageway gets the honor of us going through it first…_' 


End file.
